Order in Nature: The natural world is full of order and regularity. It is very much visible with the bold patterns or dazzling colours that many animals advertise – either to make one partner attractive to the other or to defence against the predator. But, then order can also be seen in the way animals behave. Canada goose is the largest goose in the world. They fly in V-shaped formation which is considered to be more energy efficient particularly over long migratory routes and help in increase in flight range by 71%. In fact this type of V-formation is also used by military aircrafts while on flight missions. Canada geese communicate during their flights by honking and shifting positions during their flight in order to take turns.
They mate assortatively, larger birds choosing larger mates and smaller ones choosing smaller mates. They mate for life and have very low divorce rate. While the Female geese builds the nest, the male geese acts as a sentry watching the nest from a nearby location. On the ground the geese prefer a spot with fairly unobstructed view in all directions. Spacing of these pairs depends on the population density. When the population is large, the birds nest in view of one another. The baby geese learn to swim in less than 24 hours after they are born and trained by their parents to dive 30-40 feet underwater by the time they are 1 day old. Soon they become more independent and groups of goslings join together to form gang broods of upto 100 goslings and learn to fly between 2-3 months of age.
No! Not a photograph of Predator and Prey. It’s in fact a canine, painted as a Leopard, play biting its pup! Photographed in a remote village in Western Ghats, Karnataka – India.
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More than 50 million people live in the remote parts of the Himalayas and their very existence is dependent on the mountains and its resources.
But exactly how these mountain dwellers survive in the high-altitude and the ease with which they deal with the physical challenges of scaling world’s biggest peaks has remained unknown.
But there are some clues. According to a research published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, these mountain dwellers have a major genetic component that allows populations at high altitude to live better. The scientists are still unclear exactly how those genes work and help people survive in low-oxygen condition, but they also believe that there are probably other mutations that also help and different populations for example people in the highlands of Ethiopia.
